The Hall Page #2

I wrote this story after an evening trying different foods in NY. Describing the sensations of eating the foods and setting this experience in an unlikeable place with an obsessed character seemed interesting to me.

• Short story
• Fiction

								


People dancing off-beat, following their rhythm, close to each other, or just dancing with their drinks. You catch the sight of a pretty young woman dancing by herself and enjoying that moment as if it won't last forever, just wish you could have the same feeling about the place, about that moment, her eyes hypnotize you, you can’t help but watch her, envy her, maybe you always arrive with anguish at the Hall because you are afraid it's going to end. You can feel such joy, this is the moment when you are at your best, sometimes you are just too small and all around you is so big. Walking into your sight the old man in an old-fashioned suit who looks wasted trips and almost falls but manages to not spill the drink on his hand, and that stops the thoughts from consuming you and you laugh at him.

But the delightful feeling soon squeezes the heart when you find yourself staring at the stairs again. You can’t feel the palms of your sweaty hands. You get up from your seat and stare at the movement around you. 
Look at the stairs again, why do you not go? You can go, Move. No one is watching you, tonight is the time you should go, what if there's nothing there, you dared to go, unlike all of them you can go, if kicked out of the party, Go. Yes, get up, is he staring? Look so happy dancing, everyone is dictated, walk to the stairs, go quickly and confident, no one will know. Just go fast, wait slow down, and don't rush up if you trip and fall you are going to look ridiculous, someone may look at you, okay, you already left the party just some more steps, don't look back. Fine, no one is behind. You are finally better than them.    

At the top, there is a hallway with multiple doors and you see on your right a door is ajar and the sun coming from inside the room forms lines made of light on the floor like the radiant crown. When you opened the door, the room was dusty and almost empty except for a little old sofa in the left corner. The walls were dark blue, the floor was a light wood so old that it had holes and the ceiling was yellowish with time and had a terrible smell almost like a dead animal but you couldn't see anything to be causing that smell. You were about to close the door when the window opened with a strong wind blowing through the room, spreading the devastating odor. The party would be ruined if anyone smelled that, could ruin the appetite. You go to the window and place your hands on the handle but it is stuck, you can't close it.

Looking outside at the empty street that surrounds the house, you step a little closer to the window and get your brand new shoe stuck on a floor-less piece of the ground, you take a deep breath and try to move your feet but you can't and you keep trying until you look up and through the window you can see a man standing on the street in familiar clothes, a beige suit and pink sunglasses. Is that you? You stand in shock not being able to turn away from that view. At this point, the smell infested your lungs and breathing was hard until the room started to get darker but all your feelings got stronger. You see yourself saying something and waving your arms. You try desperately screaming as loud as you can because you have a feeling that soon this is going to end, almost like a dream fading when you start to wake up. You look out of the window to try to understand what you are saying. You hear someone close to the door but you don't look behind you, you are still not ready for the embarrassment of a child being caught. You learn more trying to understand what you are saying but it still doesn’t make sense. A deathly feeling takes over your body and everything turns dark, you try to move in agony but in vain, your chest is heavy with your racing heart and none of your senses work in that deep dark room. For an eternity you stand there like a statue. You didn’t hear walking to you but there was someone who pushed you, soft quick hands that had the strength to make you lose equilibrium, if you didn’t have your foot still stuck on that floorless piece you would have fallen over to finally encounter yourself. When all you seemed to be avoiding tonight starts to consume your mind, you hear the distant sound of a glass breaking. Scared, you took a heavy step back and freed your feet, you didn't know what to do, so you ran for that sound.

Past the hallway, down the stairs, you are at the party again where the loner guy dropped his glass of champagne. The heavy fetid odor is comprised in the salon but no one else seems to be bothered; your face contracts and your nose burns. You have no idea how the Hall, your fantastical dream, looks the same but all the feelings and sensations it brought to you now smell like waste. You start to feel nauseous, you don't know if it was from nervousness or if the smell was making you sick. You can’t describe what happened. You don’t understand what is happening. Are you delirious?

You've been going to the event for five years now, always beginning in the evening until a blurry morning when you find yourself outside but don’t remember how you got there or when it ended because you never want to leave. Ever. Do you remember how it was before the hall? Terrible. Who were you every day? A nobody. But right now nothing has changed except every year you dress up and live a lie until you find yourself at the doorstep again. But for the first time in five years, you remember leaving the house.
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